Although much of the material presented at Tate Liverpool is from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, this exhibition has the same aims - to increase the appreciation, enjoyment and knowledge of twentieth century art.
The main theme is the originality of vision and technique in an earlier historical period. This has much to tell us about the art of our own time. We have therefore included examples of art from the twentieth century which share much with the greatest works of the past.
The art of watercolour flourished in England from 1750 to 1850 in an extraordinary way. Its greatest exponents – well represented here – demonstrated an unrivalled experimental curiosity in finding new techniques to express new ways of looking at the world.
Landscape was their favoured subject. Through geology, archaeology and palaeontology, it was the field of greatest scientific and philosophical interest of the time, comparable to nuclear physics, astrophysics or genetics today. Artists in our time have likewise been engaged in discovery. Because their subjects are often challenging, the means they have used to express them seem equally so.
This exhibition aims to refresh our perception of the originality of the great watercolourists. It also shows a continuity in visual approach between their work and the work of some of the masters of twentieth-century art.